Rich

It is for sure an interesting theory. Not that this should play too much into Maurice's decision on this, but Lowry is an RFA next year. If he does start logging 1st line minutes and put up decent points playing beside Little and Ladd, wonder what that does for his next contract.

I'm fairly sure he could resign and forfeit his contact... but there's no way the bombers would "force" him to stay... There is always a way out of a contract. They can't force him to come into work. I'm pretty sure the only thing they could do is stop him from working for another CFL team.

Because Saskatchewan has too many good quarterbacks? Saskatchewan is into next year territory. If they can get something for Glenn, they should. Is he even under contract next year?

Are you really that surprised? NFL gets $7 Billion a year for all of their TV rights. CFL gets $40 Million per year. They have much more money to pay for talent and production.

Not a surprise,

They think the Liberals are a bigger threat than the NDP

Deleted some posts in here. Please try to keep the discussion civil and leave the insults at the door.

Wow, this is totally out of left field and a ridiculous statement. Depending on what his camp is asking for, if the options are Buff wants a deal for 6+ years or he is going to free agency, I am fine trading him. Flame away at me for being racist.

There is really no choice if you make that contract offer. You take the 3 years and get the money up front. After 3 years you either get another contract (from any team) or you don't. If you get another contract you get more money in the long run. If you don't get another contract, you are still getting more money sooner and can invest it, giving you more in the long run. Why would anyone choose to extend that over 5 years?

Here's the scorecard so far: HC's who started off with 2 or more losing seasons who went on to greatness: In the NFL... One in the '50's - Lombardi. Two in the 60's - Knoll/Landry. One in the 70's - Walsh. One in the 90's/2000's - Belichick. In the CFL... One in the 80's - Murphy. One in the 90's(After 11 years) - Lancaster. HC's who didn't make the playoffs in their first 2 years who were kept on by their teams in the CFL since 2000 - One - Barrett. So it works out sometimes, just not very often. So what you are saying is that O'Shea is going to be the next great head coach with the best parts of Lombardi, Walsh, and Belichick all mixed in? Wonderful!

This last off season it seemed to me that defensemen were being given the bigger contracts over forwards. There seem to be less of them to choose from and teams coveting them more when their cap space gets tight. Now no Dman got an 8+M contract last off season, I think the biggest was Hamilton with a 5.75M cap hit, but that included RFA years. I think the problem for the Jets is that there is no real incentive for the player to sign if they aren't going to pony up the money or term. In years prior, teams could count on the cap going up and would offer the big escalating contracts. That isn't true anymore. There are a lot of potential UFAs next year and this problem isn't unique to the Jets. Agents and teams are still figuring out the market place in a world where the cap stays the same or may even decrease year to year. So agents / players are going to be reluctant to sign long term to what teams are offering. And the highest paid D-man is PK Subban @ $9M.

Your depth doesn't have to be rookies though. Halischuk and Fraser are two examples of veteran guys who might get pushed to the AHL by rookies. Sure, I understand that. I'm just very wary of going too young, too fast... And that's what I'm seeing right now. Not trying to be negative, it's just hard to ignore. I think our opening lineup will be: Ladd - Little - Stafford Perreault - Scheifele - Wheeler Burmi - Lowry - Ehlers Fraser - Copp - Thorburn With Hali and Peluso as extra forwards. Options for call-ups will be Petan, Cormier, Johnny Albert and Ryan Olsen. Not so bad but still seems a little scary to me. I just hope our prospects are as good as the hype train has made them out to be. There is for sure reason to be concerned when we are depending on rookies coming into the lineup out of training camp. When you look at the Jets prospects coming up, they will have to be adding a couple each year to the lineup. Ideally though they make it into the lineup as injury call-ups and force the team not to send them back down with their play to prove they are ready. Let them play in the AHL until they give you no choice. After this year and maybe next, I think you will start to see that happen more.

I think this has run its course

There was an article that came out a few days ago (can't remember where now), but attendance at BC for the last home game dipped below 20k. There is concern about the health of the franchise. They need to be a competitor to be relevant in that market. Pressure will be on Buono.

Blueandgold extended his lead this week moving up to 34 wins, leaving Atomic and saskbluefan tied for second with 31 wins. Still time to make up some ground with 11 weeks (including playoffs) remaining. Leaderboard can be seen here: http://morningbigblue.com/community/index.php?app=pickems&do=leaderboard&pid=6&wid=82 Picks this week need to be in by Friday at 8PM. They can be made here: http://morningbigblue.com/community/index.php?app=pickems&do=games&pid=6&wid=83

It would be nice to see the young'ins have some success down in the tournament but in the grand scheme of things, the win / loss record in this tournament mean even less then the win / loss record of the pre-season. And as was mentioned a couple of posts up, the Jets scouts do go NCAA heavy (and have had success doing so). And because of their goofy rules, those players don't play in the tournament (they would have to pay their own way if they did, because apparently accepting money for travel and expenses is considered being a "pro" and would disqualify them from NCAA play). Both our 1st round picks from last year, Kyle Connor and Jack Roslovic aren't even there. A few other mid-type prospects in Jack Glover, Tucker Poolman, and Clinston Franklin aren't there either.

I wouldn't read too much into the score of these games, nor does the performance of these games impact any free agent decision for the Jets this year. These guys have had next to no practice time together and if you really want to evaluate why we loss you would have to look at why we loss the game (who was responsible for giving up the goal or not scoring) and then determine if those individuals have any chance at the team this year. Out of that whole squad only a few guys have any legit chance to make the team this year. Those few guys can't be on the ice all the time.

BC still has a game in hand. We are 4 - 7. They are 4 - 6. (same as Montreal) The good news is that we still have one more game against both Montreal and BC

I've cleaned up a bunch of posts in this thread. I know people get passionate about politics and whatever side they happen to fall on, but please keep the discussion to the issues at hand and not insulting and calling out other posters. We still have a long way to go to the election, and wouldn't want to have to close this topic down. If you feel that I’ve missed any posts in this thread that should also be moderated, please shoot me a PM or flag it. Did my best to delete the obvious ones, but it is probable that I missed some.

Picks for this week need to be in by 7:30PM Friday, before kickoff of the Hamilton / Toronto game. Picks can be made here: http://morningbigblue.com/community/index.php?app=pickems&do=games&pid=6&wid=82 Blueandgold keeps his hold on 1st place with 30 wins. saksbluefan in 2nd with 29 wins and Atomic in 3rd with 28 wins. Leade rboard can be seen here: http://morningbigblue.com/community/index.php?app=pickems&do=leaderboard&pid=6&wid=81

Then we get a week of "I told ya so" and "We need to keep this group together" and "We're on the right track" and "O'Shea's a great HC" and so on before we fall back to earth the week after. Honestly, we should win this week. Regina's only won a single game all year, it's very hard to win back to back and we're at home. Agreed 100%. That's what will make a loss that much harder to take as fan. As for MOS, the rest of the coaching staff, and the Bomber management, another loss to SK at home means that there is no place for them to hide. The "I gotta watch the game film" cliche they use every week shouldn't even be brought up. Suitor had an interesting comment on MOS yesterday here on 1260 in Edmonton - he said that MOS's policy of only talking to him (and not his other coaches) has a negativec affect in the locker room. He feels since the coach doesn't trust his assistants, why would the players? He's only speaking as a former player of course but makes me wonder, how much credibility in the room does MB even have? I don't understand how a media policy would affect the players. Why would the players even care if a coordinator was allowed to talk to the media or not unless that coordinator was talking about them to the media. This sounds more like Suitor the media person speaking and not Suitor the player. If MOS didn't allow the players to talk to Marcel without going through him, that would be a problem

Putting a limit on it is a huge pain when you want to quote a post over the max and have to manually prune it, and then the next person to comment / quote having to do the same thing, so I am reluctant to change it. There is a new version of the boards software out that I am considering upgrading to in the off season (a complete rewrite from the ground up), I'm hoping they've addressed the issue by having the software prune the posts over the max setting (which is the way it should be done).